The Center for Community Engagement supports and expands experiential learning opportunities through partnerships with communities at the local, national, and global levels. CCE coordinates experiential education, research, and active citizenship including overseeing the Landis Center, the College’s busiest source of community outreach, which includes local and global opportunities through Alternative School Break. Student teams have worked in Costa Rica, Honduras, and Ecuador as well as U.S. locations.
For eight years members of the College chapter of Engineers Without Borders have been developing a safe, continuous water system in El Convento, a rural village in Honduras. Students have worked with residents to build a storage tank and washing sinks to solve the problem of polluted water that occurred after a 1998 hurricane destroyed the village pipeline. The project, which included creating owner’s guides, led to the team receiving one of three 2013 Premier prizes from EWB-USA, which has 250 chapters.
The Economic Empowerment and Global Learning Project also has been involved in Honduras. EEGLP students improved the economy in Lagunitas by helping local planters establish a coffee plantation; in Lomitas they helped improve stormwater drainage to offset flooding. EEGLP teams have also worked to help transform New Orleans’ hurricane-devastated Lower Ninth Ward into a sustainable community with solar-powered homes and urban farms.
Through Lafayette Initiative for Malagasy Education (LIME), Lafayette students mentor high school students in Madagascar by helping them apply to and prepare for U.S. colleges and universities. Each year 10 students are selected from nominations by faculty. The 2014 team includes Rebeka Ramangamihanta ’16, the first LIME student attending an American college.